


salt, the home taste

by explodinganyway



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Dreams, F/F, Gen, Mild Sexual Content, Salt, Waverly would kin with Clootie that’s just facts, Witches, but like Angst Lite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 17:04:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13594524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explodinganyway/pseuds/explodinganyway
Summary: She remembers being nine and snapping all of Wynonna’s cigarettes in two, remembers running the tobacco between her fingers trying to find traces of their father in the flat smell of it. She goes back to bed and sucks until the taste of whiskey is gone, thoughts flashing to Nicole as it sits heavy on her tongue.tl;drWaverly Earp, a study in salt.





	salt, the home taste

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [show me home and I will go (you taste like wine)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12060702) by [heartshapedcandy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartshapedcandy/pseuds/heartshapedcandy). 



> “Somewhere in the salt flats to the west, a witch is crying.”

 

> “Salt has been long considered anathema to evil and demons. In folklore, salt provides protection against witches, witchcraft, demons, and the evil eye. Salt also was used to break evil spells.
> 
> During the Middle Ages, it was a common belief that witches and the animals they bewitched could not eat anything salted. "Inquisitors who interrogated accused witches were advised by demonologists first to protect themselves by wearing a sacramental amulet that consisted of salt consecrated on Palm Sunday and blessed herbs, pressed into a disk of blessed wax." 
> 
> A common torture method was to force-feed an accused witch heavily salted food and then deny them water.”

   
Some nights Waverly dreams she’s buried in salt. Her spit sits saline dry in her mouth and the fine powder across the ground rises so high that she has to clench her jaw or else she’ll taste it. She swallows and swallows but the dream ends before she ever tastes water and when she comes to it’s with tear tracks down her cheeks and salt in the cracks of her lips.

Sometimes Nicole’s there when she wakes up, sometimes Wynonna. Nicole wipes her cheeks and pulls her close enough to her chest that the air she sucks in tastes stale and humid. She kisses the tear tracks and then her lips and Waverly feels like she’s still buried, can barely fight the urge to run to the bathroom and stick her head under the tap and drink. She’s never been one to do anything by half though so she stays put, worried that if she moves she’ll flood the house, every tap opened full with the force of her thirst until the wood swells with it, until she sinks them all. Wynonna rolls to her other side and ignores her and Waverly tries to be silent as tears wrap around her cheeks until they fall into her ear. She wipes at smudged mascara and she is never sure which one feels worse, the cloying or the bereft.

Nicole smells of coffee and hurt and the look in her eyes always makes Waverly feel guilty and loved until the two are so intertwined that she can barely tell them apart but when they kiss her bones ache and pop and stretch and it reminds her that she’s not in the salt ground. She pushes Nicole onto her back and tries not to feel annoyed at the way Nicole smiles like she’s letting Waverly lead, like Waverly couldn’t make Nicole do whatever she wanted with one tug at her belt and a coy smile. But at the first taste of salt she falters, let’s Nicole push her down into the mattress with her hips and the moan she lets out is filthy with the defeat. She comes fast and hard those times and then watches blearily as Nicole sucks shiny fingers into her mouth. When Nicole kisses her afterwards it’s warm and only a little sad and Waverly can’t escape the salt of her own release on Nicole’s tongue.

Some nights Waverly dreams of the homestead. Of too long hallways and beds backed onto one another and wind chimes that only sound when the wind is still. She walks with Wynonna to the top room where Willa used to sleep and opens the door to see a horse standing in the middle of the floor. Waverly smiles and coos and Wynonna tells her to shoot it between the eyes before it goes bad. Violence has never been Waverly’s answer but every time she takes her gun and does as she’s told and the look Wynonna gives her almost makes up for the feel of it in her hands.

She wakes from the dreams shivering and salt dry. Feels her heart hammering faster like she’s sharing the beat with someone else, someone running a little too fast. She goes downstairs on socked feet and, barely daring to breathe, pours full bottles of whiskey down the sink. The floor is always too cold but it’s worth the sharpness to know she’s doing something right. It’s an awful waste and she nearly gags at the pointless ruin of it all but then Wynonna mumbles on the couch and Waverly turns back to the sink and tries to convince herself she’s not addicted to the way the gold liquid runs down the drain. She remembers being nine and snapping all of Wynonna’s cigarettes in two, remembers running the tobacco between her fingers trying to find traces of their father in the flat smell of it and always leaving feeling empty. She goes back to bed and sucks until the taste of whiskey is gone, thoughts flashing to Nicole as it sits heavy on her tongue.

She spends nights at Nicole’s now, sharing food and still nervous glances as they realise each the others intentions, always too soon and never soon enough. She knows Wynonna doesn’t eat on nights when she’s away from the homestead and Waverly should care that her sister is losing too much weight but the sharp edge of Wynonna’s hip bone whenever she hugs her always gets pushed to the back of her head. It sits behind research and revenants and the taste of alcohol as they all celebrate and Nicole, Nicole, Nicole. She’s addicted to her; to her steadiness, her smile, the way she can press down and down on her and she always keeps arching back, to the way she kisses her and tastes salt. Nicole makes her stand up straight, makes her sure of her own decisions, keeps her positive that sneaking downstairs and emptying bottles into the sink is the right thing to do. Wynonna must notice, must know it’s Waverly but she never mentions it, never wakes up from the couch to claim the last dregs. Waverly never drinks it but the smell sits heavy around her and she always always wakes desperate for water.

The homestead is bigger in her dreams- endless rooms that she only glances into before she gives into the pull to go upstairs; the slick and heavy horse heartbeat a call she doesn’t quite know how to ignore. Willa’s room is always unchanged and the animal in the room never quite outweighs the click of a forgotten switchblade right up until peacemaker is in her hands and then, well. The thud as the animal hits the ground is heavier than anything she knows, is heavier than anything has a right to be and she would almost be mad at the way she still turns to see Wynonna’s reaction except Waverly doesn’t know if she should direct that anger at Wynonna or at herself. It sits endless in her chest like truth, like a black hole, like the empty sound of the wind across the salt flats. All she knows is that her forehead has scars in the shape of Wynonna’s lips and they carry all the things she was meant to be. All she knows is that her spine can still feel Nicole’s fingers running up it and she doesn’t know how much straighter she can stand without crumbling from the responsibility of it all.

She wakes and Wynonna is next to her smelling so closely of her childhood but with an edge of something else and she wants to press closer, to wrap herself around Wynonna like they did when Daddy and Willa were yelling in the other room but she never quite feels brave enough to. She rolls over and goes back to sleep with the creaks of the homestead sounding alien in the wake of her dream, Willa’s room of the past meshing ungainly with what it looks like now. There aren’t any horse pictures up any more and Waverly isn’t sure whether putting one up will make the house breathe easier or not. She’s learnt now that sometimes it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.

She wakes still remembering the image of Wynonna on the salt flats, peacemaker in one hand and a shovel in the other. She wakes and swears she can still feel the granules against her lips. She wakes and kisses Nicole.

**Author's Note:**

> There is no way Waverly knew of Wynonna’s intentional cruelty out on the salt flats. One day everything on the homestead will rust and Clootie will have her revenge.


End file.
